S48 llie Unity of the Organism 



right in the view that the discovery has at the same time 

 narrowed the application of the term. As the preceding 

 discussion shows, historically, logically, and biologically, 

 the mouth or the locomotor appendages of a protozoan have 

 exactly the same right to be called organs as have the same 

 parts of a metazoan. The dodging in this matter, as seen 

 for example in the proposal to keep the organs of the pro- 

 tozoa quite apart from those of the metazoa, by calling 

 them "organelles," "organoids," "cyto-" one-thing-and- 

 another, is indefensible so far as animals themselves are 

 concerned. And no one should wish to minimize the import- 

 ance of the point at issue by imagining the question to be 

 merely one of terminology — of what the objects dealt with 

 shall be named. That this is by no means all there is to it 

 may be discovered by noticing the warmth with which a 

 genuine cellular elementalist will come to the defence of his 

 terminology when its legitimacy is seriously questioned. The 

 truth is, and let us not miss it, behind this "mere matter of 

 terms" there is in hiding the scientifically reprehensible 

 practice of trying to disguise or obscure facts in the interest 

 of a theory. And the practice entails, as the defence of 

 false theories always entails, contradictions and obscura- 

 tions of all sorts. To illustrate, it is said by cellologists 

 that a protozoan's mouth must not be called a mouth but a 

 cytostome because being in a cell and not composed of cells 

 it is only analogous, but not homologous with the metazoan 

 or "true" mouth. From which it follows by clear inference 

 that all metazoan mouths are homologous, those of a lobster 

 and of a dog, for example ! But the anatomical absurdity 

 of the situation is easily met by those who are committed 

 to the defence of the theory regardless of facts, by simply 

 pointing out that the mouths of a lobster and a dog are 

 homologous just because they are both multicellular. If 

 one wishes to prove that no wooden building is a true liouse, 

 he can do this to his satisfaction, if his mind works that 



